Research Project

Research Project

Research Project

The Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) work together to administer and enforce laws to protect the safety and health of workers within the United States. This, alongside the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSH) Act and various other laws and acts are intended to provide a safe work environment to minimize fatal and serious injuries. This could include a variety of different things such as ensuring employees receive full length breaks, know where emergency exits are in case of an emergency, or more common things like slips, falls, or knowing how to operate work equipment. Workplace safety is extremely important and should be implemented through the usage of well-established and outlined practices and policies set to protect employees.

Management Dilemma

Within this paper, the problem trying to be solved with this research is determining a way that management can encourage and promote workplace safety, while maintaining employee engagement and that feeling or safety and protection throughout the process. Safety is an extremely important component of any business and should be treated as such.

Question and Hypothesis

Although safety can be a boring topic, living it up, and making it clear exactly how important the concept is can make a world of difference. For this research project the research question will be, what are the variables that promote employee engagement of safety in the workplace and how can management implement safety plans and training to reduce workplace injuries? According to Landrum (2014), “Business research is a form of scientific research, and its ultimate goal is to provide reliable information/data that helps to inform decision making”. This sort of research can be utilized to identify, formulate and test hypothesis. Landrum (2014), goes on to state, “A hypothesis is knowledgeable guess that challenges to explain the facts that result from scientific studies”. In this research project, the hypothesis would be management is not focused on training and implementing safety precautions and rules, as they believe this information to be understood by employees.

Summary of Research

Conducting research on workplace safety I found an article on the importance and implementation of workplace safety laws and how to get workers involved in safety practices. The article also provides information on how to reduce and minimize accidents in the future as well as explores how engagement levels can affect and act as a mediator between safety systems and performance outcomes (Watcher & Yorior, 2014).

A study was conducted on workplace safety and how it is affected by individuals within the workplace and just how their role can contribute to the safety of the company. This article is helpful in explaining the different roles that can play a part in the safety environment of a workplace and the protection of its employees and will be helpful in supporting the hypothesis.

References

Christian, M. S., Bradley, J. C., Wallace, J. C., & Burke, M. J. (2009). Workplace safety: a meta-

analysis of the roles of person and situation factors.

Landrum, R. E. (2014). Research methods for business: Tools and applications [Electronic

version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/

Wachter, J. K., & Yorio, P. L. (2014). A system of safety management practices and worker

engagement for reducing and preventing accidents: An empirical and theoretical investigation. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 68, 117-130.